Battleangel

Some paranoid tidbit from last week. Lenovo PCs deemed security risk. Priceless.

Earlier this year, the US State Department ordered 16,000 new PC’s from Lenovo. For those that don’t know, Lenovo is a Chinese PC manufacturer who used to make Thinkpad’s and other kit for IBM. When IBM decided to sell off it’s PC manufacturing and get out of the business, it was Lenovo who bought them out and now make the same kit under it’s own brand name.

The PC’s have been delivered and many connected up to State Department networks to do their job. Until Republican Congressman Frank Wolf stepped in with ‘fears the kit could be used by China to spy on the US’. This paranoid maniac and his chums have convinced the State Department that Lenovo may have secreted some ‘back-door’ piece of hardware/software into the machines so that they can collect classified data. And the State Department has agreed and yanked all Lenovo kit from classified networks, assigning them to other tasks. No doubt Solitaire and downloading porn, sorry, I meant religious tracts.

Now, here’s the bit that really wins the prize for this stupidity. When they used to buy the kit from IBM, it was made in China and no one worried. The 16,000 they have just had delivered from the same Chinese company - were made in old IBM plants in North Carolina, USA.

Got to love U.S. paranoia, political posturing and plain stupidity. Obviously, no one could determine if the mind-boggling accusation of backdoor hardware / software had any merit. Probably because that would have required outsourcing the task to China. Instead, the PCs are essentially scrapped. And the U.S. gladly affirms how plain stupid and impotent they are in a fruitless attempt to smear China. Got to love someone punching themselves bloody.